Oct 4, 2011

CLASSIC REVIEW: venom the hunger

The Story: In The Hunger, the symbiote (or Other as it is referred to here) has a need for brains and abandons Brock when he will not support this addiction.

The Good: Symbiote - It seems like lately every time the symbiote leaves its host, it wants to or ends up bonding with someone/something else. There were a lot of opportunities for this to happen throughout the story, but the writer took the high road and let the symbiote think for itself. Kudos to you Len Kaminski! Brock - Eddie really is a good guy. This is probably where a lot of people lost intrest in Venom because of the whole 'eating brains' idea, but from the start Brock is against it and eventually finds a 'cure' for the symbiote's problem. However thanks to Mac, we eventually end back up with a symbiote monster that rips arms off and eats brains.

The Bad: Issue 3's Ending - I thought it was completely cheese to have the symbiote fall in Brock's arms and then cuddle with him like a puppy (see above image). Panel Layouts - Some of it may of been intentional to show how scattered Eddie/Symbiote's minds were while apart; some of it is probably the style of comics in the 90's, but I found many pages hard to follow.

The Overall: 3 outta 5. A solid relationship story between the symbiote and Eddie. Like I said, the idea of eating brains was probably a turning point for most reader at the time. However, rereading it gave me much more of an appreciation of how making the symbiote such a brain-eating-monster (btw he only liked 'bad guys' brains) and Brock's outrage at it really helped define the Venom relationship.